Tag: Hubble Space Telescope

Researchers have found that galaxies forming stars at extreme rates 9 billion years ago were more efficient than average galaxies today. The question astronomers have been asking is whether such starbursts in the early universe were the result of having an overabundant gas supply, or whether galaxies converted gas more efficiently. In general, the larger a …

Using images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and ESO’s Very Large Telescope, astronomers have discovered never-before-seen structures within a dusty disc surrounding a nearby star. The fast-moving wave-like features in the disc of the star AU Microscopii are unlike anything ever observed, or even predicted, before now. The origin and nature of these features …

When a star with a mass of roughly ten solar masses finishes its life, it does so in a spectacular explosion known as a supernova, leaving behind as remnant “ash” a neutron star. Neutron stars have masses of one-to-several Suns, but they are tiny in size, only tens of kilometres. Neutron stars spin rapidly, and …